Word just came down that the NRA has named liar, hypocrite, convicted felon (convictions later reversed), and traitor Oliver North as its new president.

(For those with short memories, North conspired with Ronald Reagan to sell arms to the Iranian Islamist government — a “hostile foreign power” — lied about it, and used the funds to bankroll the terrorist Nicaraguan Contras, an act specifically outlawed by Congress. This is about as close to a dictionary definition of treason as you’ll find,)

That the NRA named North as its new leader is entirely fitting.

You see some jerk driving around with a huge American flag flying (probably on a pickup — often two flags), with an NRA sticker on his tailgate, you can bet money that you’re seeing a traitor to (supposed) American values. (Being a pickup driver myself, I have nothing against pickups — just a lot of their drivers.)

These idiots think they’re patriots. They’re not. They make a fetish of worshiping the symbol of supposed American values (individual liberty, freedom of speech), while betraying those values by demanding strict conformity, oftentimes threatening dissenters, and occasionally assaulting those exercising the rights enshrined in the Constitution — rights that the flag is supposed to symbolize.

So, it’s completely appropriate that the NRA has named Oliver North as its president. An organization of traitors to American values has elevated an actual traitor.

An important note: I support gun rights and think every American adult should own at least one semi-automatic assault weapon. But the NRA has strayed so far from that reasonable position — it now takes authoritarian, often theocratic positions on a wide range of social, political, and economic issues — that it’s become a totalitarian, anti-American organization.

All that’s left is for the NRA to institute goose-stepping drills and oaths of fealty to the Glorious Orange Leader.

When I was much younger, I supported the NRA. No more.

I’m utterly disgusted.

What was supposed to be a Second Amendment, responsible gun use organization has transformed into a group of anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, pro-intrusive government theofascists.

A year ago Donald Trump famously said that he could murder someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his base wouldn’t care.

He was right.

More recently he’s repeatedly done the equivalent of strangling a dog and sodomizing the corpse on live TV, and most of his base still won’t care, will stick with him. Making excuses about why it was “necessary.”

What will it take to peel them off?

Maybe 10% of them still won’t admit that they screwed up royally, and that billionaire, criminal Trump is going to fuck them economically. They’ll probably fall away eventually as Trump’s utterly hypocritical economic promises turn to dust.

Like this:

Yeah, there are 20,000 or 30,000 pointless deaths every year because idiots have access to deadly weapons, but do you really want to give the government a monopoly on deadly force?

They already have near-total immunity for murders committed by the police (abetted by the FBI — see Fred Hampton and Mark Clark), and do you really want to give up one of the few things that would give you a fighting chance if the shit ever really hits the fan?

My best friend, Randy Oliver, who died just over a decade ago, was an ex-army lifer, an armorer. (Also a bassist, who I played with for many years.) He was an extreme right-wing survivalist type, with a huge distrust of the government — with good reason: he was an Apache (pictured at left on the photo on the top of the page). We agreed about politics 90% of the time. As he put it, he was a “right-wing wacko” and I was a “left-wing wacko.” But we agreed most of the time. What drew us together was anti-authoritarianism — the belief that no one should tell us how to run our lives.

One of the things he told me before he died was that to have a fighting chance against the government you need four things:

communications

body armor

infrared sight

a semi-automatic or full-automatic assault weapon

This is why I find the Democrats’ proposals to ban assault weapons so abhorrent. Assault weapons only account for about1% of gun deaths in this country, yet they seem the focus of the PC left’s assault on the Second Amendment.

As for handguns, I have women friends who carry them. It might give them a false sense of security, but it gives them a sense of security. Do you want to take that away from them? Yes, ban handguns and the number of gun deaths would fall sharply. But some of my friends might get raped. Statistically, that’s not likely, but do you really want to deny them the chance to defend themselves in the most effective way possible?

My friends are sharply divided on what type of weapon to buy. Some advocate AR-15s, some advocate AK-47s. But the point is, buy an assault weapon now–with at least a thousand rounds of ammo. While you still can.

* * *

What can we do about gun violence? A very good first step would be to stop drug prohibition. Make drugs legal. All of them. Take the profit out of them, and you’d cut the cartels at the knees. Probably three-quarters of property crime and half of gun violence would vanish overnight. (Smokers, hooked on a drug more addictive than heroin, don’t mug people to get the money to buy tobacco.) If you doubt this, look at what’s happened in Portugal since they legalized drugs 15 years ago.

People abuse drugs because their lives are miserable. Making their lives more miserable–as the government now does–is not a solution to this problem.

So, legalize drugs — then look at why daily life is so miserable for so many people that they find drug use and abuse an attractive option. And then do something about it.